The California Department of Veterans Affairs announced today that it will award a total of $270,000 to County Veteran Service Offices in six counties. The Proposition 63 money will be awarded to the counties of: Fresno, $20,079; Lassen, $60,000; Los Angeles, $55,000, San Diego, $31,257, San Luis Obispo, $58,664, and Solano, $45,000 to help provide mental health education and outreach to local veterans. See the attached document for brief summaries of the specific projects each county will undertake.

“We’re very excited about being able to make these awards to our County Veteran Service Offices, which are on the front lines of local veteran service,” said CalVet Secretary Peter J. Gravett. “With so many vets struggling with post traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, and military sexual trauma, these funds are extremely important to the veterans in those counties,” he said.

In May of 2012, CalVet released the 2012-2013 Proposition 63 Funding Request for Applications which outlined the purpose of the funding, funding restrictions, application process, evaluation criteria, review process and application scoring. This process was designed to allow counties to address unique local factors in connecting veterans to mental health services. Six applications were received in July and today’s awards reflect the degree to which each applicant met strict funding criteria including their ability to achieve performance metric targets.

Proposition 63, known as the Mental Health Services Act, allows the California Department of Mental Health to provide increased funding, personnel, and other resources to support county mental health programs. Passed in November 2004, the Act addresses a broad continuum of prevention, early intervention and service needs and the necessary infrastructure, technology and training elements that will effectively support this system.